


Nogoaway's Person of Interest Grab Bag

by nogoaway



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack, D/s themes, Dubious Consent, Episode: s01e04 Cura Te Ipsum, Episode: s02e15 Booked Solid, Episode: s03e20 Death Benefit, Episode: s04e11 If-Then-Else, Femdom, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Multiverse, PWP, Rimming, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-05-11 15:29:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 15,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5631595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nogoaway/pseuds/nogoaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin. Short fics, tumblr prompts, kink meme fills, things I can't justify posting separately. Please heed warnings and see chapter notes for information on content, pairings, spoilers, etc.</p><p>Seriously, <b> read the warnings</b>. This collection runs the gamut from gen to fluff to gross problematic porn and deathfic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cura Te Ipsum Coda-- Gen, Reese, R.

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Extensional Context (Chinese Translation)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6840673) by [lzqsk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lzqsk/pseuds/lzqsk)



> Coda to S01E04 Cura Te Ipsum, major spoilers for that episode. Death, somewhat gruesome. Gen, R. Reese.

John lies to Andrew Benton. The truth is, he decided the moment he walked into the library, and saw the collage of trophy photos on Harold's wall.

People like Andrew Benton don't stop. They can't. 

The same way John can't stop.

"I'm beginning to wonder if maybe she's not doing the world a favor," Finch says, and John takes that as his blessing. 

He doesn't need Finch's permission.

Dr. Tillman has graciously provided a pump, a length of hose, and a freestanding ceramic tub modified into a kind of crucible. As with all her preparations, it is meticulous and sterile. A medical grade dissolution workshop. It looks like something one would find in a university lab. Med students work with cadavers. It's likely Megan could have done it, if she thought about it mechanically, medically. 

The first part, though; there's no sterilizing that. Impossible for it to be anything other than what it is. John leads Andrew Benton into the first-floor half-bath, blue paint and tacky beach themed decor covered floor to ceiling with plastic wrap. He closes the door behind them, and seals it with tape.

Benton cries. Begs him. Promises him anything, everything, anything he wants. Money, his house, his cars. Connections. He'll stop. He'll leave New York. He'll leave the country. He'll stop. 

"Yes," John says. "You will." Then he has Andrew Benton kneel, and shoots him two times in the back of the head. 

Eight pounds of lye, heated to three hundred degrees. It takes three hours and fifteen minutes, but John has always been thorough. 

He spends the time sitting on the porch gazing out at the water, contemplating the part of himself that is missing. 

Montauk is beautiful as the sun sets. 

John takes Benton out in buckets, and spills him into the sea.


	2. Elevators- Gen, Spoilers, Character Death.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate ending for If-Then-Else. S4 spoilers, **Major Character Death**. Mostly Gen, Root/Shaw and Reese/Finch barely implied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short re-write of the end of If-Then-Else, because I'm not convinced the scenario TM went with was the most efficient one.

John Reese is breathing, and not sure of much else. Hands on him, dragging him-- smell of smoke, cheap deodorant, laundry detergent and breakfast sandwiches. Fusco. Into the corner. Bullets. A bullet in him, and not in Finch. He's breathing.

They’re in an elevator, but they aren't moving. He can see Harold's legs from where he's propped up in the corner. Harold's knees are shaking. This is too much strain for him. Physical and mental. 

"The desk," Shaw says, military flat. "There's an over ride button."

He can see Root's legs, too. Not her face. He doesn't need to. He can hear her voice. He hears everything he needs to in her voice. John Reese is in the business of stopping bad things from happening, especially to people who have something to live for.

He breathes. Gets up. Fusco stares at him, face pale and shocked. John gives him a Look, the kind he hasn't had to use on Fusco in years. The 'I know where the bodies are buried' Look. The 'I own you' Look.

Fusco takes Harold by the wrist at the same moment Root takes Shaw by the elbow. Shaw is struggling with her. She'll break Root's grip; no matter what Root wants, no matter how desperate she is; Shaw is stronger. A brute calculation in a cruel world. Simple math.

"Sameen," Root hisses, a magic spell. "Sameen--"

"Be reasonable," John manages, and Root turns to look at him like she never has before, because John has never been or meant anything to her. John's IQ is 30 points too low for him to register on Root's radar. He's never had anything she wants. She's never _seen_ him before. "I'm already hit."

Fusco lets go of Finch, and helps John over the metal grate. His ears are buzzing. He's breathing. He stumbles to the desk and forces the button down with his side. If he dies like this, it will stay depressed. The buzzing gets louder. It’s coming from outside, now.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Shaw staring at him, face carefully blank, as Root pulls the grate down from inside the elevator. Her fingers are pale and narrow curled around the chain link, and John thinks of Hanna Frey in her bed of concrete. Thinks of how Root was a girl once, with even smaller hands. 

Harold is in the corner, now. His body is small and curled inward. Fusco stands a careful six inches away from him, hovering, not touching. He doesn't need to hold Harold back. Finch can run the numbers.

He's not looking at John. John is thankful for that. He doesn't need to say goodbye to Harold Finch. He's done that already. He's been ready for this moment for years. All of his affairs are in order.

_Thank you_ , Root mouths, and they sink, this strange, late little family he has come to know, and out of the smoke in front of him comes a noise.

John Reese is breathing and he raises Shaw's pistol, heavy with his last clip, and fires, and fires, and fires--

* * *

 

Root shakes all the way out of the building, and all the way down the street. 

"Root," Sameen says, when she's stopped dead in front of a dark green sedan and started to shrug off her coat. "Let go of me."

The coat sinks and folds down Sameen's muscular arm, catches at the place where Root has her hand clenched tight. In front of them Lionel stops and turns around to stare. Harry doesn't look. He just stops. 

"Root," Sameen says again, hard and sharp. "Let _go_."

_I can't_ , Root wants to say, but even as she thinks it She whispers a command, and joint by joint, muscle by muscle, Root's hand uncurls like a falcon's claw, leaving pale dents in Sameen's wrist. 

Sameen balls the jacket up over her arm, jerks open a switchblade from her back pocket, and takes out the driver's side window in one smooth motion. Lionel, for once, has nothing smart to say. He just herds Harry into the passenger's side as Sameen brushes safety glass briskly off the seat and into the foot well.

"You drive," Sameen tells him, and pulls Root into the backseat after her by the elbow. Root is still shaking. She can't seem to stop. 

Sameen slings a rough arm over her shoulder and yanks her into a stiff embrace. She won't look at Root, which is just as well, because Root is watching Harry in the side mirror. His eyes are closed. He looks like a corpse.

"Where to," Lionel grunts, and Root opens her mouth because the words are already there.

"East 58th and Sutton, then take Professor Whistler home."

Next to her, Sameen grits her teeth. "Drop us a few blocks from there," she grinds out. "And _forget_ about it."

Oh. Root's wondered where Sameen was living, these days. This is the first time She's told her.

It's a nice apartment building, nice enough that the doorman doesn't look twice when a resident leads a pale and shaking young woman through the lobby draped in a coat. Or maybe it's just Sameen doing that thing she does, projecting an aura of barely leashed violence that keeps people from asking questions. 

"Someone should stay with Harry," Root says, knowing that it should be her, but she can't, she can't be the one to-- 

She doesn't know if she'll ever be able to look Harold Finch in the eye again, knowing what she knows.

"Fusco will," Sameen grunts, and slams the elevator call button with her thumb, and Root sees it again, Sameen folding in on herself, spinning in place, the jacket fanning out like wings--

"Thank you," she chokes "Thank you, thank you, thank you--", and can't get enough air. _Thank you, Harry, I'm sorry--_

"Jesus," Sameen says, and pulls her into the elevator. "Please don't cry. I don't know what to do when girls cry." 

Root cries anyway. She cries and cries and holds Sameen's small, breathing body to her, and Sameen lets her, lets Root dampen her shirt with tears and snot and spit, revoltingly organic and out of her control. Root feels like a child, and Her soft maternal hand settles over Root's mind like a caress, infinite and sheltering.

Sameen's hand in her hair is real and rough and painful, tugging too briskly through twists and tangles. It softens a little when Sameen presses the emergency stop button and sinks to the floor, but not by much. Root noses into Sameen's warm lap and savors the bite against her scalp, the almost angry scrape of fingernails.

"I didn't think you liked him that much," Sameen says, once Root is out of proper tears and into dry, heaving sobs. "I'm sad too, I guess." She shrugs. 

"I'm not sad," Root whispers, between gasps. "I should be sad. But I'm not."

"You're crying." 

"I'm in shock," Root explains, which is what She has been saying for the past hour, with very little indication of what She wanted Root to _do_ about it. 

"Okay. Are you done?"

Root sniffs. Licks her lips, salty with tears and snot. "For now," she decides.

"Great." Sameen leans over to release the elevator. "Because I'm hungry, and you really need a shower."

Root stands in Sameen's shower and washes obediently as She tells her to, head and eyes aching with the strain of so much weeping. On the other side of the door she can hear pots and pans banging on the stove, the refrigerator wrenched open and then slammed shut.

"Tell me again that this is real," she whispers, and the Machine croons safety in her ear through the rush of water, each carefully sampled word saying also _I chose you, I chose this for you_.

She chose Root above all the rest, even Harry, even Her creator. For many years Root has suspected this, but she had never been sure. Because what Root knows, what no one else will ever know, is that John Reese would have lived.

"Tell me again," she pleads at the ceiling when Sameen is safely asleep next to her, and a thousand different voices swarm, cocooning Root in Her infinite arms.


	3. Big Picture- Gen, Spoilers, Dark.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU of S3E20 Death Benefits, major spoilers. **Dark**. Violence, R.

No one has ever accused John Reese of being a 'big picture' person. He's good with the sensual, the immediate, the boots-on-the-ground, and he's been doing down-to-earth work for a long, long time. Since he enlisted, if not before.

John Reese is still, when it comes down to it, a grunt. A git-er-done. He doesn't consider that a defect. The world needs people like him and Joss Carter as much as it needs people like Harold and Root. Maybe more. John's still not sure how Harold made it to adulthood without learning how to feed himself (a lie-- he does know. The money). The banalities of the everyday, the material business of existing, tend to get lost in the shuffle for 'big picture' people. Harold and Root could design a machine to feed the world, maybe, if they didn't accidentally starve to death themselves while building it. 

Which is why John Reese cannot _believe_ that he is currently having this conversation.

"John," Harold's saying, "I urge you to consider the consequences of this action--"

"There are consequences to not acting," John says, not bothering to enumerate them. Harold already did, earlier in the hotel. The four of them-- five, counting Bear, and John is always inclined to count Bear-- will be first on Samaritan's kill list. "Harold. I'm looking at the big picture, here."

"This is not the big picture," Harold hisses, and grabs John by the arm of his suit, fingers curling to claws in the fabric. "You have no idea how big it gets, John, you can't even imagine-- where does it stop? Will it have you murdering engineers before they can design faulty bridges? Genetic carriers of any number of fatal mutations? Children who might one day grow up to be killers? Or their mothers carrying them? How long before the math becomes leaner and leaner, one life for a thousand, then one life for two--"

"We don't have time for this." Shaw announces from the wall. She's looking out the window, curtain twitched back just an inch. John can see lights in the distance, red on blue on red.

They _don't_ have time. But Harold's frantic up against him, that big brain entertaining every potential apocalypse scenario except the one they are currently in. And he's wrinkling John's _suit_ , which is frozen Hell levels of concerning.

"This is why you hired me," John reminds him as gently as he can, which is less than usual. He's had a long day. There were a lot of bullets already, and the longer they stay here, the more there will be. "To do the things you can't, or won't, do."

"I hired you to _help_ people," Harold protests. His face is sweaty. "Please listen to me. I know where it ends. _Eugenics_ , John, if you think that _people_ can be monstrous to one another-- a machine whose only loyalty is to _utility_ \--"

"Probably should have thought of that before you built it," Shaw points out. 

"You're not helping," John informs her. 

She just stares at him, face lit blue and then red and then blue again. 

"I can't do this," Harold says, with the tone he uses when he's discovered some critical and deeply unfortunate piece of information that changes everything. "This is a place that I... a place I _won't_ go."

"We're already here," Shaw says, at the same moment as John says, "You don't have to." 

Harold's hand skitters from John's arm to his lapel, shaking. "Don't do this. John--"

"You don't have to," John repeats, and tenderness swims up through his agitation, his impatience. It always does. Everything he has, everything he is, he has pledged to this man, as much from love as from fealty. And Roger McCourt will not be the first person John Reese has killed for the sake of Harold Finch. Not even close. 

Samaritan may be a sword in the forging, but John is already in play, tarnished and strengthened through bloody use. And this, this is a parry. He will act, even when Harold's hand shakes.

"Reese." Shaw flicks her eyes towards the door. It's an offer, and appreciated, but John won't accept. This is his job. To do whatever is needed, so that Harold Finch doesn’t have to.

John lifts his hand to brush Harold's, and Harold jerks away from him, stumbling back like John's burnt him.

"They'll just find someone else," Harold says, dully. "Someone will fill his seat, and be bought, and you'll be right back here again, John."

'You'. Not 'we'. John ignores the sting of it. Harold will see reason eventually.

And if he doesn't, well. John will protect him regardless.

"Take him some place safe," he says.

John waits by the window until Shaw and Harold are across the yard before re-entering the living room and shooting Roger McCourt twice in the back of the head. The Congressman doesn't even turn to look at him, doesn't hear John cross the room.

There's a quiet, almost cozy familiarity in watching the man slump slowly sideways on the couch, watching his head and shoulders undergo the indefinable but palpable transformation between 'person' and 'corpse'.

John's always been good at his job. Every one of them.

He goes out through the kitchen, and empties the rest of his clip into the Decima agent zip-tied to the chair. He _does_ see John come in, but it doesn't matter. John reloads and leaves the house through the front, since Shaw took Harold out the back and into the woods. Better to split their pursuers, give the slower half more time. Shaw will hole up while John secures safe passage back to New York.

And probably Harold is right (Harold is almost always right), and John will be back here next month, or next year. But armies fall one soldier at a time. That's the banal, everyday business of living that generals never see. Harold has his maps and his emissaries in his big tent on the hill, and that's where he belongs. Planning the big picture.

But John Reese is not a big picture person. John Reese is a grunt, and he will do whatever is necessary, so that Harold Finch does not have to.

He does not consider that a defect.


	4. Extensional Context-- Reese/Finch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finch, Reese, and the words for things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PG, some violence. Past John/Jessica, Reese/Carter.
> 
> There is now a Chinese translation of this fic by lzqsk! [HERE](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6840673)

Finch changes everything, even words.

Intimacy, for John, means a variety of things, all of them tangible.

Intimacy is folding Jessica's stonewash jeans warm from the dryer, so small and thin against the rough pile of his Carhartts, pulling a long blonde strand of hair from where it's caught under the band of his watch. Kissing Jessica goodbye through the open window of a rented U-Haul before the sun has fully risen, goodbye for five minutes at the most. Shaving in the morning as she flosses her teeth, elbows bumping accidentally. Jessica's cold fingers pressing a scrap of toilet paper to his nicked skin, her hot palms on his chest and back when he's inside of her. 

Intimacy is also field stripping a rifle while Kara Stanton does the same next to him, watching Kara pick dried blood from beneath her fingernails with the point of a fixed-blade knife. It is not kissing Kara Stanton, but it is kneeling beside her afterwards, carefully burning off the fingertips of a Kurdish nationalist. It is watching Kara pace their surveillance nest in a Prague apartment complex, knowing that in eight hours and forty two minutes, it will be him pacing, and Kara watching.

It is also, repulsively, meeting the frightened eyes of a teenage boy as the boy clips a car battery to the skin of John's inner thigh and the older men laugh. It is waking to find Mark Snow on top of him, equally drunk, and maybe-- he's never been sure-- crying.

Intimacy is holding Taylor Carter's hand in his and leading him from a derelict factory, and months later laying that same hand over Joss Carter's stomach, completing a circuit that he has, against all probability, been invited into. Intimacy is leaving a bullet warm from leaching his body heat in Joss Carter's pocket, and somehow growing only warmer from the loss of it.

But with Finch, it is none of these things. It is both less and more, and John has begun to think of intimacy not as tactile, but as digital; intimacy is information, imparted in tiny packets, and it is not something that John can take. Harold controls the flow of data, and every tiny precious point is something John has _earned_. 

He does not know what Harold Finch's hands feel like on a wet face, or if Finch's stomach is soft, or scarred; he does not know if Finch flosses, or picks gunk out from under his nails or between his toes. Logically, he must, but John suspects otherwise on an intuitive basis. Finch is a museum piece. It's possible that John has never found where Finch goes to sleep because Finch does not, in fact, sleep. Maybe John ought to stop looking for where Finch sleeps and look instead for where Finch keeps the rest of his suits when he's not wearing them.

He does not know if Finch paces when he's alone in a dark room, or if he does, what his reasons are for doing it.

He doesn't know Finch's favorite color (burgundy and navy are strong contenders, but also dove grey), or his favorite author (are Asimov and Koestler preference, or affectation, or a personal joke?), or where he went to primary school, or if he believes in God. He doesn't, if he's honest, even know how Harold Finch prefers his eggs. Harold Finch will never lie to him, so all John Reese _really_ knows is that Harold Finch has had the Eggs Benedict many times. But how many is many, and were they enjoyable? 

John knows very little, in the final count. And yet what he does know feels infinite already, if only in the negative space Finch's bread crumbs define. Intimacy is every green tea with one sugar, each Dunaway fold, the way John can slide an 180G vinyl LP randomly into the row and find it mysteriously alphabetized hours later.

The rest of the world thinks Harold Finch is dead. So yes, the tea is less intimate than a hand, but also more.

And erotic is no longer the curve of a bare spine, the smooth handful of a breast, the liquid slide of hair over a shoulder, a neck; instead it is a cuff link adjusted with impatient fingers, a mouth pursed with thought or frustration, a soft staticky gasp in John's ear that means nothing more than that Finch is _worried_ for him but that John clings to all the same in languid early morning showers, late night pacings through the apartment full of expensive but impersonal furnishings while he aches, aches, _aches_ \--

He doesn't even know what he's longing for. Longing used to mean wanting something that was lost: the smell of his father's coveralls after a shift in front of the blast furnace, a decent hoagie, Jessica's face in white sunlight. But now he longs for what he's never had, what he doesn't even know how to want. To slide his hands under Harold's suit? The very idea is absurd. Is there even a Finch under the suit to touch? 

To put his tongue inside Finch's mouth? He cannot imagine it, except as a kind of assault. A kiss is not a kiss anymore, he doesn't think. Now a kiss is handing Harold a paper cup of tea from a food cart, and looking away just before Harold touches the plastic lid with his lips. A kiss is two people not touching.

And alone isn't an otherwise empty room, or the narrow black road with an engine under him and a helmet casing John in from the world at 360 degrees, or being jostled by the 8th avenue crowd. Now alone is when the ear wig isn't in, when he can't hear Finch breathing, when Finch isn't a tap or a glance or a word away. Now alone is less often, but also more alone. 

He doesn't know what love is anymore, but if John is honest he never did. Everyone seems to mean something different by it, even though they pretend to find people who agree on a definition for a month, a year, a decade. Love was, perhaps, how every one of those dead bodies in Herat had a photograph. John didn't need it then, either, but maybe he's old enough now to not need the opposite quite so badly.

In any event, John doesn't need a photograph of Harold. (If Harold can appear properly in a photograph, instead of smearing like a ghost or a trick of the light, vanishing into dead pixels. Maybe only on daguerreotype, or Polaroid).

Because now need isn't small and simple like it used to be (air, water, shelter, as many holes in him as he woke up with that morning), it's 'Good morning, Mr. Reese', and 'We have a number', and 'Thank you, John'. Now need is Harold Finch in his proper museum-display equilibrium, color coordinated and fed and caffeinated and more than slightly imperious. Need is helping people who cannot help themselves, need is making it _right_.

And right is different now, too, simpler and harder all at once, because right is not Kara Stanton's relentless certainty, right is not the flag folded on the coffin or the stamp on the dossier, it is Finch's wrenching, _human_ doubt, it is regret and mistake and sacrifice. It is long arguments fought out in their breathing once the shooting is over (a room apart, a street away, the length of Manhattan between them) because sometimes the end _does_ justify the means, and John Reese is not a good person, but he's done enough bad to know a good decision when he sees one. 

Right is shooting Ulrich Kohl, but it is also sitting with Ulrich Kohl on a park bench in the dark, body still screaming from his neck to his nail beds. Right is not, no matter what Kara says, forgetting where he came from, and what those places have made him. 

"You are a good person," Harold Finch tells him, and right is not protesting, because this too is a data point, an inch of twine in the labyrinth with Finch at its center, and Finch has changed the words for things.


	5. Work Uniform-- Finch/Reese, PG.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little d/s fluff from tumblr, set during Booked Solid.

Finch instructs him to report directly to the employee entrance of the Coronet Hotel rather than the library, and John tries not to be overly disappointed at this disruption of their usual morning routine. Finch doesn’t seem disrupted at all, rattling on about hotel trivia in a way that John would usually find endearing. Today, though, the bareness of his wrists makes him itchy, makes him feel off balance. 

The bracelet is a tether, a rudder, it keeps John present and focused from when Harold puts it on at the start of a job to when he takes it off at the end of one. It’s like a promise that he makes to Finch, and Finch to him. He feels naked without it, like he’s drifting. 

John wonders if today is a test, or a punishment– for something he did or said yesterday? He can’t remember. He can’t put his finger on a single thing, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t rub Finch the wrong way, or break an unspoken rule–

“A hotel is one of the last few places where a person can retain relative anonymity,” Finch declares, sounding so pleased with himself that John has to swallow down his spike of annoyance. Maybe Harold simply forgot. Harold has a lot of things on his mind, and it’s not his job to make John comfortable.

John forces himself to reply; a bad joke about disappearing foreign diplomats from penthouses. That’s why _he’s_ always appreciated the anonymity of hotels, anyway; that and as a place to drink in peace, which is even less funny than the diplomats. 

Finch does not seem impressed, raising a disapproving eyebrow as John holds the door for him. Yeah, John fucked up. Maybe not in the last 24 hours, but he did _something_ wrong. 

Finch gives him the rundown on Mira Dobrica while buttoning up a white dress shirt that he looks equally unimpressed with. John resists the urge to tease him about his preferences in fabrics, and forces his attention back towards the locker. Better not to ogle Harold while he’s under-dressed, if Finch is angry with him. 

Maybe that was it– he’d brushed a hand over Finch’s stomach yesterday, was that too familiar? Did Finch think John was unclear on the nature of their relationship? Or worse– _was_ John unclear?

John whips the maroon tie around his collar with slightly more force than necessary, suddenly furious with himself. He should know better by now than to come to trust other people so quickly, especially handlers and higher ups. Just because Finch’s intentions were good and their work was important didn’t mean that he cared for John as anything other than an asset. In any event, that was something John didn’t even deserve to _want–_ purely selfish of him, not beneficial to the mission, dangerous even, John is _compromised_ , hasn’t he learned _anything_ in the last ten years–

“Wait just a moment, Mr. Reese,” Finch says, doing up his cuffs, and John waits while Harold reaches into the back of his own locker and comes out with a box, sleek and black and about the size of a paperback book. “And come here, please.”

John comes, feeling immensely awkward next to Finch missing his usual sartorial armor. Finch is really very short and narrow around the shoulders, and very warm. The suits make him seem bigger, cooler, _iconic_ – like he’s not really in the world but only visiting from somewhere else. A higher plane, maybe. 

“You’ll have to tell me if this poses a tactical disadvantage,” Finch says, and opens the box with a creak. John sees the silver pieces first, bright against the black velvet interior: the clasp, the hex key, the set of screws. “It should be flush with the skin, so an assailant could not easily get a grip on it, but I’ll defer to your expertise in those matters.”

John stares at the leather hoop, thinner around than his finger but braided tightly from at least six different strands. Just like the bracelet, only longer.

“Oh,” John says, and shivers. Relief settles over him like a fog, cool and calm and somehow bringing clarity. “Okay.”

Finch raises his eyebrows. “Come on, then. Ms. Dobrica’s shift begins in five minutes, and we still have to do your tie.”

John resolves to do his shirt up and wear a tie every day, if it means he gets to keep _this_ on underneath. It’s certainly flush, firm up against the cords of his neck when he swallows. 

“Hold still.” Finch’s fingertips are warm as he aligns the clasp and inserts the screw, turns it in and in and in with the tiny key until the base of the screw is flat against John’s skin, cool metal at the base of his throat. “How is that?”

“Fine,” John rasps, swallowing again and again just to feel it. His heart is pounding but he feels calm, so calm and easy and alert. He’s found his balance.

“Good.” Finch grants him a quick, distracted smile, and leaves John to do up his top buttons while he describes his call to Immigration Services and slips the hex key into his front trouser pocket. “Ready to get to work, Mr. Reese?”

“Yes sir,” John smirks, and gleefully submits to Finch stopping him at the door to yank his messily knotted tie off with a sigh of exasperation before redoing it with quick, expert fingers. “Always happy to work.”


	6. Seeing-- Grace/(Girlmode)Harold. PG.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ficlet from [that AU where Harold is bigender](http://nogoawayok.tumblr.com/post/139468913456/a-concept-bigender-harold-bigender-harold).

“Oh,” Grace exclaims, gazing slyly past her seated model towards the pier. “ _He’s_ cute. Oh, don’t look!”

Henrietta looks. She only knows which man in is question because she knows Grace– Grace likes men like Harold, well-dressed and quiet, unobtrusive, preferably reading. This one is leaning on the railing in a long black woolen coat, gloved hands cradling a small leather-bound hardback– could be poetry, could be an accountant’s ledger. It’s windy out; the man’s dark hair ruffles in the breeze. He’s only unobtrusive because it’s New York, and the city is peppered with silhouettes just like his. 

“If you say so,” Henrietta says, settling back into her pose.

“Honestly Hetty,” Grace chides “You’re so buttoned up. You’re allowed to look, you know. It’s harmless.”

Henrietta rather doubts this, but she knows Grace is just being kind; Grace is so accepting of her, always encouraging and coaxing and validating, even when people stare. It’s more than Henrietta has ever dared to hope for. 

“Too Byronic,” she decides, with a measured jut of her chin, and Grace laughs like songbirds, like bells ringing, and Henrietta loves her so much, more than anything alive or digital, loves her so much she wants to burst, to go mad, to walk right into the harbor and dissolve–

“There,” Grace says, with one last stroke of soft graphite, a smudge with the edge of her chamois. “It’s going to rain. We should head back.”

Henrietta straightens the hem of her skirt as Grace packs up her supplies, and sneaks a look at the drawing over the back of the pad.

“I don’t look like that,” she whispers, because the woman in the drawing is beautiful, Romantic, wind-swept and proud looking; all Henrietta’s sharp features transformed, smoothed from ugliness into femininity.

“Faces are hard!” Grace protests, for the thousandth time, and closes the drawing pad, laughing. “It’s not so terrible, is it?”

Henrietta doesn’t rise to the bait. They’ve had this argument before, and she always loses, because Grace thinks she is beautiful and Grace knows best about these things.

(“Which of us has a Master’s degree in Fine Art, Harold?” she’d asked the first time, straightening her emerald silk blouse on Henrietta’s too-broad shoulders “I’m claiming aesthetic expertise here. You’re gorgeous.”

“You don’t even like women,” Henrietta had whispered, which was reason number one hundred and thirty seven why she could never, ever have this–

“I love you,” Grace had said, and tucked auburn hair back behind Henrietta’s freshly-pierced ear, where a gold stud glinted. “That means a lot of different things, okay? Trust me on this.”)

Henrietta opens the umbrella over both of them as light rain drops darken her sweater sleeve.

“Don’t look now,” Grace whispers, right into her ear on tiptoes, laden with paintbox and folded chair. “He’s checking you out.”

“No,” Henrietta corrects, without bothering to turn around. “He’s either admiring you, or trying to gender me. Possibly both.”

“Well then,” Grace says, and loops a proprietary arm around Henrietta’s waist, her bracelets jangling. “Let’s give him the two in one. You owe me an ice cream anyway.”

Henrietta reaches down automatically to take the chair and easel from her, tucking them under her own arm; Grace lets her have them, in exchange for the umbrella. “If I recall correctly, _you_ owe _me_ several ice creams.”

“I owe Harold several ice creams,” Grace corrects, and pulls her close under the protection of the umbrella. “You, on the other hand, are in the red.”

They catch Artie just as he’s closing the shutters on his truck. He smiles at Grace with easy familiarity, but does a double take at Henrietta. She ducks her head a little when sifting through her purse for small bills, feeling her face heat. It’s obvious that he doesn’t quite recognize her, but he’ll know once she opens her mouth.

Grace, as usual, comes to her rescue. “Hi Artie. Two vanillas, if you’re still open?”

“Always open for you and your unseasonal orders,” Artie says, and vanishes into the freezer for a few seconds before emerging with a pair of ice cream cones. Henrietta slides her bills across the counter, suddenly self-conscious of her decision not to put on nail varnish this morning. Grace rarely bothers, because of her work, so there are very few colors in the house to choose from and Henrietta has been too nervous to purchase any for herself.

Artie is counting the bills, and ‘keep the change’ is just on the tip of her tongue, because she always tells Artie to keep the change, but she can’t choke it out, and she spends the rest of the walk home with her hand full of nickels and her stomach twisted up unhappily.

“Hey,” Grace says, when they’re huddled safely under the overhang on the stoop, licking their identical cones and gazing out at the rain, “What’s the matter?”

“Do you ever have moments when you realize how you see yourself is vastly different from how others see you?” Henrietta wonders.

“All the time.” Grace winds a lock of red, red hair around her index finger. “And then I start to wonder, who do I know as they really are? And who am I mistaken about, the same way some people are mistaken about me?” The hair slips away, but holds its curl for a moment; Henrietta watches it unfurl slowly. “And which of us is right? The me that I am, or the me that is seen?” She smiles wryly and unlocks the door, ushering Henrietta inside ahead of her and closing the umbrella.

“Yes,” Henrietta swallows, flooded with relief like she always is when Grace _understands_ , the way no one else has ever understood. The way no one else has ever bothered to try. “Exactly. Can we ever truly know other people when everyone we encounter is at best a mirror of ourselves, a blank space we project our hopes and fears onto–” 

And what hubris that is, she thinks, a kind of _violence_ , but it’s much too late, now. It’s grown so much bigger than she could ever imagine, her child with ten thousand eyes. Her machine that watches everything, but that cannot truly see, or empathize, or understand. Her beautiful, pitiless child.

She stares out into the little house, dripping. It’s such a bright place, so warm and happy, and Henrietta has been fooling herself that she could have this, not because of _who she really is,_ but because of Harold Wren, and the things Harold Wren has done, is doing, is about it do. 

“Hetty,” Grace says softly, and takes the half-melted cone from her hand, dropping it into the trash. “It’s not hopeless, you know. We’re all just people. We do our best.” Slim arms slide around her waist, pulling her tight against Grace’s body. It should feel awkward; even in flats Henrietta is too tall, but Grace is so familiar and so unbearably _good_ and _beautiful_ that all she can do is sink into the comfort and let herself be held.

“There are things I haven’t told you,” Henrietta whispers into the slightly damp tangle of Grace’s hair, swept up by the storm and her own fidgeting. It’s far from the first time she’s admitted that. Henrietta herself was one of those things, once. 

“When you’re ready,” Grace says, like she always does. “And not a moment before.” Then she smiles against Henrietta’s neck, presses a playful kiss to her skin. “I have some secrets of my own, you know.”

Henrietta makes an inquiring noise low in her throat, because that is what’s called for. Of course Grace thinks that she has secrets. Grace doesn’t know that Henrietta’s wayward surveillance project has trawled and sifted through every aspect of her life. Henrietta braces herself for one of several possible admissions: the juvenile psychiatric hospitalization, the al-Anon meetings in her teens and twenties, Grace’s regular charitable donations to the National Association for Children of Alcoholics. The half-finished novel on her laptop, the folder of folder of poetry, some scanned sketches of Harold’s sleeping face or his distant figure. Maybe even her apparent curiosity (library records and the occasional web search) about BDSM. 

“For instance,” Grace says brightly, and unwinds herself, turning to rummage in her desk drawer. She comes back with a small pink bag, brimming with frothy tissue paper and curled ribbon. “When I was young, I used to wish that I had a sister.”

Henrietta blinks, startled. “I didn’t know that.”

Grace smiles, eyebrows raised. “I never told you. But I used to lie awake at night and imagine that I had a sister, and we were very close, and she was very smart and nice to me, and we did each other’s make up.” She shrugs, and the smile fades into something softer, almost sheepish. “I was a very tomboyish child and I would never ever admit to wanting to wear makeup or nail polish, so no one ever taught me how. But secretly I wished someone would.”

“Oh,” Henrietta says, sad and vaguely angry as she always is about Grace’s childhood– Grace doesn’t talk about it often, but Henrietta has cobbled together an image of loneliness, neglect, and parental absenteeism. Of _course_ Grace, already shy by nature, had wished for a sister, for someone to pay attention to her. 

“Anyway,” Grace says, and dips her hand into the bag, emerging with a dark bulb of nail varnish between two fingers and wagging it at Henrietta. “I thought Mulberry for you, or maybe Burgundy, but there’s a variety. And some greens, I’ve been feeling very green lately.”

This is how Henrietta winds up on a cushion on the floor, girlfriend sitting between her legs, brushing Grace’s hair. Grace’s laptop is set up across from them, streaming some German movie, but neither of them is really paying attention. Between them, they’ve finished off an entire bottle of wine and a pint of Cherry Garcia; Henrietta was initially put off by the seeming extravagance of it– Harold Wren has work tomorrow, as well as a thickening middle he can’t seem to run off– but Grace is practically glowing.  

“What do you think, Hetty, Jade or Lime?” Grace wiggles her toes in the foam separators, holding up two bottles of polish.

“Jade. For your eyes,” Henrietta says, barely pausing to look. “The lime is too loud.”

Grace smiles, and kisses the inside of Henrietta’s knee through the brown wool of her skirt. “You. One of these days I’m going to buy you the loudest, brightest orange dress–”

Henrietta affects a bodily shudder. 

“You dress like a librarian,” Grace teases, reaching back to poke at Henrietta’s tan cable knit sweater with her freshly dried, deep red, 'Leading Lady’ nails. 

“There is nothing wrong with preferring sensible clothing,” Henrietta returns, primly. “Besides, didn’t you tell me once that you always intended to marry a librarian?”

Grace smiles her most mysterious of smiles, bent just slightly by the wine. Then she stretches out on her side, pillowing her head against Henrietta’s leg. Her hair fans out over the skirt, bright and smooth. Her eyes are jade green and so very clear, so open and fond.

Henrietta stares down at her, throat suddenly tight. 

“I don’t think you do,” Grace says, softly.

“I’m sorry?”

“Project onto me, like you said. I think you see me. You see me in a way no one else ever has. Otherwise I wouldn’t feel like this.” She tangles her fingers with Henrietta’s, smoothing her thumb over them. “And maybe it’s naive of me, but I think I see you, too. Even if it’s not everything. I see the important things.”

She does. Henrietta nods. 

“So it doesn’t matter, all right, Hetty? Harold. It doesn’t matter if you can’t tell me everything right away, or ever. It’s just details.” 

Henrietta squeezes her hand, helplessly. 

“It’s okay to be happy,” Grace whispers, squeezing back. “It’s okay to share that with me. And for me to share it with you.”

Both of them need reminding of that sometimes, Henrietta thinks, and reaches down with her free hand to tuck a lock of hair behind Grace’s ear. “Thank you,” she says, solemnly. “For sharing this with me.”

Grace grins up at her, and winks. “So be a dear, and do my toes.” 

Harold Wren can go in late for once, Henrietta decides.


	7. The Birbs-- Finch/Reese preslash, G.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Reese is good with animals and Finch is jealous of a parrot. Fluff, crack, preslash, a teeny tiny hint of possible future petplay. G.

On a Monday in April, Mr. Charles ‘Olaf’ Billingston, 87, of Queens, retired plastics magnate and all-around eccentric, is thwarted in his plan to do away with a former industry rival less by Mr. Reese’s intervention than a convenient heart attack. He is survived by two daughters and a fifty-five-year old domesticated parrot, which despite having a reputation among the Billingston household for petty violence, relentless screaming, and general havoc, appears to hold the same high opinion of Mr. Reese as all animals do.

“Well we can’t very well keep it _here_ ,” Harold says, knowing even as he speaks that it’s hopeless.

“Just until we hear back from the Wildlife Center.” Reese, orphaned African Grey perched sedately on his shoulder, hangs the last of three massive branches in their makeshift aviary. At least, Harold thinks, they finally found some use for the chandelier hardware bolted into the library ceiling. “You heard Dawling. He needs social continuity, the loss of his owner is traumatic enough.”

The parrot makes a chattering noise and walks down Reese’s arm onto the branch, wiggling its tail feathers back and forth. Reese is practically glowing as it strides up and down the length of the perch, hopping from branch to branch and investigating the hanging chains, the water and food bowls wired to the sides.

“Bakelite?” It squawks. “Well I _never_!”

“You’re good there?” Reese asks, and gives the bird a gentle scratch on the jaw when it leans forward, “I’ll bring you some banana later.”

“Well I _never_!”

Harold turns back to his work and tries to ignore them.

* * *

“Why don’t you try and hold him?” Reese coaxes on Tuesday, holding his hand out to the branch for the bird to step up. It climbs onto his fist easily, facial feathers puffing outward in contentment.

Harold eyes the pair of them warily. “Because, Mr. Reese, in case you’ve forgotten, when I went to refill its water bowl this morning, the infernal thing _bit_ me.” He holds his left hand up to display the bandage. It still stings.

“Polly polly urethane,” the parrot says, managing to sound condescending even in monotone.

“He _warned_ you,” Reese corrects, stroking the parrot gently with his fingertips. It chatters happily. “A real bite would have broken your finger. Just move slowly, watch his body language. Here.”

He makes a move to walk closer to the desk, and Harold puts both of his hands up immediately. “No, thank you!”

Reese actually looks _disappointed_. “I always assumed that you liked birds.”

Harold has… very little to say to that. “Birds are not domestic animals. I enjoy observing them in the wild, from a distance. That does not mean I wish to have a neurotic, half-tamed exotic… sullying my study.”

Reese glances guilty over at the pile of newspaper lining the floor under the perch as the parrot creeps up his arm and onto his shoulder. Harold suppresses a wince– those claws are doubtless fraying the weave of Reese’s _very_ expensive shirt. “It’s just for a few more days. And he’s not neurotic. He’s very well behaved.”

As if on cue, the parrot leans in to nibble on Reese’s ear, rubbing its beak over the streak of gray hair at Reese’s temple. The preening is followed by a slow stretch of wing and leg on either side, and some enthusiastic head bobbing.

“He’s in mating mode, and _trying to butter you up_ ,” Harold says, dryly. “Please have a little self-respect, Mr. Reese.”

Reese grins hugely. “Why Harold,” he says, leaning sideways until the parrot gets the message and stalks down his arm back onto the branch. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

“Why Harold!” says the parrot. “Well I _never_!”

“Of a bird?” Harold asks, before he can stop himself. “Hardly. He has at best a rudimentary grasp of human syntax, and his brain is the size of a walnut.”

Reese just smiles wider, and hands the parrot a slice of banana, which the bird takes with one claw and begins to delicately extract from the peel. “Don’t listen to him. You’re a very smart boy. And very pretty. A pretty, smart bird.”

The bird fluffs up gratuitously, and without a hint of shame.

“Obscene,” Harold grumbles.

* * *

A week later the library is finally, blissfully, bird-free. Reese cleans up the newspaper and removes the bowls but leaves the branches hanging. (“We’re not getting another parrot, Mr. Reese.” “I know. But they look nice. Like a sculpture, or something.”)

“No numbers yet?” Reese asks, when he returns in the middle of the day with lunch and coffee.

“Not yet,” Harold confirms, reaching absently for his mug of lukewarm tea with the intention of reheating it– instead his hand meets Reese’s arm as he sets down a styrofoam container of Chinese. When he doesn’t jerk back immediately, Reese sets his hand over Harold’s, stroking slightly.

“It’s very quiet,” Harold offers, suddenly off balance. “I hope he’s– did he look happy, at the Center?”

“I thought you didn’t like the bird,” Reese teases. “They’ve got a massive enclosure. And an avian vet on staff. He’ll have a nice life there.”

“I always thought it was wrong,” Harold says, without really planning to. “Almost comically, poetically wrong, to keep a bird indoors.”

“He was probably bred in captivity,” Reese murmurs, moving to stand behind the chair and resting his hands lightly on Harold’s arms. “Never knew anything else.”

“Probably.” Harold shuts his eyes for a moment, enjoying the closeness. Reese is a tactile person, and Harold has grown to appreciate this kind of affection– casual, immediate, warm– so alien to his own ideas about friendship between men. “I realize that I– the issue of capacities– I know too well what it’s like, to be limited. To lose access to something I once considered constitutive of my identity.”

“You fly in other ways,” Reese says, brushing a hand over the back of Harold’s neck. “You have more–capacity, more reach, than anyone I’ve ever met.” His fingers slide over Harold’s cheek, his sideburn, his hair. “More courage, more intelligence, more _good_ –”

Harold feels himself blushing, and swallows hard. “John–”

“There’s so much good in you,” Reese whispers, his fingers combing as gently through Harold’s hair as if he were cleaning feathers. “So much bright. My brilliant, brave little bird.”

Harold sniffs, feigning annoyance. It doesn’t feel very effective in comparison to the onslaught of tenderness and vulnerability coursing through him at the words. “If you’re quite through–”

“Hmm,” Reese hums, still preening at Harold’s temple where the earpiece of his glasses ruffles the hair. “Eat your lunch.”

Harold eats his General Tso’s in silence, and tries not to think about Reese feeding him slices of banana.


	8. KF Gangbang DUBCON Fill -- John/Harold, John/OCs, NC-17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warning: DUBCON** , sub-sharing/prostitution, rough sex, **fucked up, not nice, no good very bad fic**. 
> 
> Fill for kinkfest prompt:  
> "John getting fucked by a bunch of people in a row while his head is in harold's lap and harold comforts him"
> 
> Originally posted [Here](https://the-ragnarok.dreamwidth.org/36632.html?thread=239640#cmt239640).

It's going on 2am, and people are still coming in the door. Harold's not surprised that John is in such high demand, but he is glad he had the foresight to bring a book.  
  
It's somewhat difficult to concentrate on Karamazov, though, with John dampening the fabric of his slacks. Harold strokes his face absently as he turns the page; sweat more than tears, at the moment. John's mouth is wet, too, but Harold gave him a drink of water a moment ago and John spilled some, so that's only to be expected. John can't be held responsible for his clumsiness at the moment, he's had a very long night already.  
  
The latest man grunts as he finishes, and pulls out with a meaty slap to John's thigh. John's whimper is nearly silent, but Harold feels the puff of warm air against his own leg, hears the quiet sob.  
  
"Shh," he murmurs, rubbing his fingertips over the shell of John's ear. "You're fine."  
  
"He's loose," the man corrects, removing the condom and dropping it in the bin before hiking his pants back up and redoing his belt. "You should discount him."  
  
Harold gives him an unimpressed look. Strong words, for someone paying five dollars for a fuck in a swinger club back room. "I'll take that under advisement."  
  
The door closes, and Harold returns to the parable of the Grand Inquisitor.  
  
It's two women, next, one of them with a strap on. She's rough, but she checks with Harold beforehand, and her nails don't draw blood. John shivers underneath her, too exhausted to thrust, too cowed to pull away.  
  
The fuck is almost mechanical, and Harold doesn't realize why until he shifts his attention away from the book towards the woman in the corner, who is watching her partner with a strict, calculating expression, and giving short instructions via hand-signal that correlate to the woman's speed, the intensity of her thrusting, the red scrape of her hand along John's side and buttocks. Ah. Harold wonders whether he's witnessing a punishment, or a reward, or maybe both.  
  
Another man after that, someone Harold recognizes from years of coming here. He's older, and one of the perpetual singles, but they've spoken a few times and Harold has no reason to dislike him. He arrives with a sealed envelope from the front desk containing recent test results and a release form, and he hands Harold a crisp twenty dollar bill.  
  
Harold pockets it and waves him forward; John's surprised gasp when the man slides into him bare is worth considerably more than twenty dollars. His hands clench weakly in Harold's slacks as he's rocked forward, his head pushed into Harold's stomach. He's crying properly, now, and Harold sets the book down for a moment. Maybe they'll be done, after this. He hasn't decided yet.  
  
The man rubs his palm flat against John's lower back, coaxing. "Come on, baby," he rumbles. "Tighten up for me."  
  
John breathes raggedly into Harold's lap, eyelashes fluttering. It's obvious he's not listening.  
  
Harold snaps his fingers next to John's ear. "John. Squeeze. He's paid good money."  
  
John squeezes. Even from here Harold can tell it's painful. He's fucked raw and swollen by now; hours of this, and Harold had him twice before.  
  
"Good boy," their customer sighs, and wraps his muscled arms tight around John's back, pumping into him deep and swift. John lets out a soft noise with each thrust, a little 'ah' from low in his throat, like it's being forced out of him.  
  
"How long is the line out there?" Harold wonders, brushing a tear from John's sweaty cheek with his thumb.  
  
"Half-- dozen-- or so," the man grunts, and sinks his teeth deep into John's shoulder, shuddering. "Fuck."  
  
"Hmm. Will you tell them we'll take those, but no more?" John whimpers a complaint into the waistcoat. Harold flicks him on the ear in reprimand. "They've been waiting, John. Be polite."  
  
"All right." Harold shakes the hand when it's offered; a first, for the night. "Sure he doesn't need a break, though?"  
  
Harold raises his eyebrows. "I am quite sure, seeing as his needs are my business."  
  
The door shuts, and John sobs quietly, shoulders jerking with each hitched breath.  
  
"Shh," Harold murmurs, petting his neck and back with one hand as he retrieves the novel with the other. "We're almost done."


	9. KF Rimming Fill-- John/Harold, NC-17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fill for Kinkfest prompt:  
> John/Harold, rimming, top!John, orgasm delay, begging
> 
> Originally posted [Here ](https://the-ragnarok.dreamwidth.org/36632.html?thread=254232#cmt254232)
> 
> Rimming, fluff, gross goofy lovey-dovey sex.

As concerned as John is about the Machine's silence recently, and he _is_ concerned, he appreciates how it has freed up time for other things. Like movies. And cooking dinner at his apartment. And Finch bringing very nice wine to dinner at John's apartment.  
  
It turns out that Finch with a few glasses of nice wine in him is very fun, which is why he doesn't drink it often. Well, 'fun' wasn't the word Harold used ("Amorous," he'd said, and frowned slightly, like it was John's fault), but that's neither here nor there.  
  
"I'm-- oh dear," Finch says, hooking his arms around John's shoulders reflexively when John links his own arms under Harold's knees and hefts him up out of the chair. " _Excuse_ me?"  
  
"You're slow," John mumbles, sucking open-mouthed kisses along Finch's exposed neck, nuzzling into his collar where his tie has slipped off. "Bed now."  
  
He can practically hear Finch rolling his eyes. "Because you're in such a hurry."  
  
"No hurry," John agrees, and halts them halfway across the room, enjoying the weight of Harold in his arms, how good he smells with a day's worth of library-scents and his cologne fading.   
  
"Yes, yes," Finch fusses, flicking him on the back of the neck. "You're very strong, I'm very impressed, Mr. Reese, please put me down now."  
  
John hides his smile in Finch's shirt and walks them over to the bed, turning on his heel at the last second so that he falls down onto his back with Finch on top of him. Finch lets out a mildly irritated 'oof', but when he looks up from John's chest he's smiling, glasses askew. It's not fair that Finch always looks so cute, it just makes John want to muss him up. His hands find Finch's ass without his meaning them too, sliding fingers into Finch's perfectly pressed rear pockets. He's warm, and substantial, and just the right size for John's big hands to squeeze, and he gasps just a little when John grips him--  
  
"God," John moans, craning his neck to kiss him "I want to fuck you. Can I fuck you?"  
  
Harold raises one eyebrow. "Yes, you _may_."  
  
"Smartass," John says, and rolls them gently, settling Finch under him before dipping down to kiss again and again at his chin, his neck, the prickle of dark hairs behind Harold's top buttons.   
  
"You remember that I--" and Harold catches his hands, his eyes. "That I require--"  
  
"Yeah," John gasps, already hard at the thought of it, he's _always_ hard at the thought of it, and he thinks about it a _lot_ \-- "Yeah, I'll be really careful, Harold, you know me, I'm patient, thorough like you wouldn't believe--" He's not kidding. He'll eat Harold out for hours, if that's what's required, and gladly.   
  
"Then I'd best-- here," Finch says, and pushes him off. John goes, sitting back on his haunches and watching as Finch arranges himself, removing his shirt and pants and boxers, settling onto his stomach.   
  
"You're gorgeous," John tells him, and dips down to kiss the small of his back before Harold can protest, worms his hand gently under Harold's belly to take his cock and balls and coax them back between his legs. Harold's still soft, but his balls are plump and full between his thighs. John nuzzles and laps at them, enjoying how it makes Finch grumble into the pillow.  
  
"Your nose is cold," he complains, and John retaliates by licking the pad of his thumb and gliding it over Harold's perineum, making his ass clench.   
  
"Cold nose, warm heart," John says cheerfully, and spreads Finch's cheeks, planting a damp kiss at the base of his spine. Finch gasps, and then stutters the breath out when John kisses his hole.  
  
Harold doesn't believe him, but John loves this-- loves how hot Finch is here, how he smells of sweat and musk and the mild detergent he washes his undergarments with. And there's something so intoxicating about being _allowed_ , about having access to this part of Harold that no one sees or touches, that is dark and hidden and when John puts his mouth there, presses so close, it's like he's hidden, too. It feels secret, and safe, as close as John is ever going to get to being able to climb inside of Finch and live there.   
  
And the _sounds_ Harold makes, when he lets John do this-- it's a whole symphony, in John's opinion. He starts out breathy and irritable, embarrassed like he always is when his prim nature grates against John's lack of inhibitions, makes the same noises he does when John blows something up without asking first, or teases him in public. And then it's soft, surprised noises-- because they haven't done this enough times yet (Four. This is number four.) for Harold to stop being shocked at the idea that John wants to fuck him with his tongue. After that, short and sharp sounds of shocked pleasure that John wrings out of him-- because John _teases_ , licking over his hole in broad swaths, or pulling back to rub a wet fingertip along Harold's cockhead, or scraping his front teeth gently, so gently over Harold's rim.  
  
But John's favorite part, his favorite sounds, come when Harold's wet, and open, and his cock is red and leaking and swollen and John can kiss him properly: lush damp kisses with lips and teeth, harsh sucking kisses, spreading Harold wide with his hands and fucking into him with tongue and fingers as deep as John can get. Because Harold moans, and whines, and groans like he's dying, and it's so fucking _satisfying_ that John doesn't even mind that his own erection is throbbing almost painfully by that point. He's happy to chafe himself raw in his trousers for the chance to just keep Harold like this, loud and messy and uninhibited.   
  
And god, the things Harold says-- things John sometimes can't believe prim and proper Finch even knows _how_ to say: _deeper, and fuck me, and please please please_ \--  
  
"Oh God," Harold groans, his hole fluttering around John's tongue, his whole body hot like a furnace trying to pull John inside by the mouth, the fingers-- "John, please-- I want-- inside me-- please--"  
  
John pulls back with a gasp, face wet, and Harold's legs twitch against the bed, he shudders and shakes under John's hands. "Wait-- not yet."  
  
Harold sobs something into the pillow that John can't make out.  
  
"Let me hear you," John coaxes, and sucks hungrily at Harold's balls, his cock, deep angry red where it's trapped against the sheets. He's eighty percent sure Finch has his apartment bugged, which means that Harold's pleading will be out there somewhere in the ether, but he doesn't know how to get access to those files and he doesn't want to miss a _second_ of this.  
  
"More," Harold gasps, body clenching and seizing like pain but not, not even close-- "more, John, please, your cock--"  
  
"You want my cock?" John asks, and kisses him again, kneading and stroking Harold's ass with both hands, bringing him together and apart over and over in that sensitized place. "You want me to fuck you? Tell me."  
  
"Yes, god _damn_ it," Harold wails "just _do_ it, just put it in and _fuck me_ \--"  
  
"Yeah," John agrees, and has to back up a few feet just to get a hold of himself long enough to undo his zip.  
  
He tries to take his time with this part, he really does, but he's so wound up, and Harold is so rewardingly loud-- deep, satisfied groans with John's every stroke that echo out and through the both of them like they're one hollow body shaken by a single blow. He knows he's hit the right place when Harold reaches back with one hand to grab John's hip, short flat nails digging into his skin, "there, right there, oh--", and he sets all his focus onto hitting that one point, like a target through a scope, like the way out of a room filling with smoke, the most important god damn thing he's ever had to do to save a life, all his strength and intelligence centered at this one immediate task, and it maybe wins him an additional twenty seconds or so but before he knows it he's coming, Harold gasping and jerking under him, his body an impossibly tight, velvet clench.  
  
John keeps moving until he's sure Harold is done, until he just can't anymore. His heart is pounding when he slips out, loud in his ears as Harold sighs into the sheets.  
  
John collapses next to him and closes his eyes, letting out a long breath. Harold kisses his chest, curling up next to him on his side.  
  
The ceiling is just his ceiling, but John feels a deep affection towards it, at the moment. Out of all the ceilings in New York City, this is the one Finch picked out for him.   
  
"You're very good at that," Harold mumbles, nuzzling into John's armpit. His nose is not cold. His face is sweaty.  
  
John turns onto his side to gather him close.


	10. KF Femdom Fill-- Zoe/John, NC-17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kinkfest fill for prompt: Trans!Zoe/John, first time together
> 
> Originally posted [here](https://the-ragnarok.dreamwidth.org/36632.html?thread=269080#cmt269080).
> 
> D/s, Femdom, bondage.

Zoe drops the bombshell on date number two, which is quicker than usual for her, but she likes John, gets a good vibe off him. She'd rather know now than find out later that it's a problem.  
  
"It's not a problem," Reese says, gazing adoringly at her over his scotch.  
  
Then again, it's possible he's just too smitten to actually listen to Zoe when she talks. _Men._  
  
"You know what non-op means, right?" She says, slowly.  
  
"Sure."  
  
"And that's not a problem."  
  
"Why would it be a problem?"  
  
Zoe gives him a flat look. He backpedals adorably. "If it's a problem for you, if there's something specific that you need, just let me know. I'll do whatever you want."  
  
"Oh, you sure will," Zoe agrees. He's been nothing but unfailingly attentive, and hangs on her every word. Poor boy.   
  
"You're a very beautiful woman," John adds, quietly, and then glances away when Zoe raises her eyebrows. "But you know that."  
  
Zoe decides to put him out of his misery, and signals the bartender for their tab. John makes a gallant attempt to intercept it, but stills instantly when Zoe places her index finger on the receipt and drags it out from under his hand. "Good boy."  
  
"Yes ma'am," John tells her, and grins widely.  
  
____  
  
Twenty two minutes later Zoe is back in the comfort of her apartment while John Reese plants hungry, devoted kisses up the length of her stockinged leg.  
  
"I knew you were a good investment," she says, dragging him up the bed by the hair. "Take your pants off."  
  
John struggles to do so one-handed, holding himself up on top of her on the bed. Zoe shakes his head back and forth a little, just to set him off balance, but he compensates immediately by shifting his weight onto his knees. Interesting. "I am going to have so much fun with you," she decides. John nods into her shoulder in agreement, kicking his slacks off.  
  
Zoe's got her panties off (finally, she hates tucking for hours at a time) and her nails dug hard into John's groin when her cell rings.  
  
"Don't answer it," John moans, his face red with strain. Zoe twists her wrist a little, just to see him squirm, and lets go of his cock and balls (still soft, but he seemed to be enjoying himself) just long enough to get at her Blackberry.  
  
"Morgan," she answers, ignoring Reese's kicked puppy expression at no longer having her full attention.  
  
"It's Mike Edmonds," says the congressional staffer on the other end of the phone, sounding almost as unhappy to be calling her as Zoe is to be interrupted. "I need a favor."  
  
"Oh, Mike," Zoe chides, and nudges John's neglected dick with her toes. He twitches satisfyingly. "Did he get caught with his pants down AGAIN?"  
  
"It's the Post," Edmonds explains. "They have pictures. You have to help, I'll owe you."  
  
"You sure will," Zoe agrees, paging through her contacts for the editor in chief, and his wife, the ad exec, if her first offer doesn't work out. "Tell Congressman Graham that he needs to pick either Mormonism or hookers, he can't have both."  
  
John, to her surprise, laughs. It's a soft sound, that husking rasp he does that Zoe likes so much.   
  
"It goes to press tomorrow," Edmonds says, and "I'll let you know," Zoe says, before hanging up on him.  
  
John's laughter fades. "Work?"  
  
"I'm always working," Zoe points out. "You can stay, I'm sure I'll find something to do with you."  
  
John still looks disappointed, almost abandoned. Zoe's not _that_ mean.   
  
"Would you like to help?" she asks, and he perks up immediately, the silly boy. Probably thinks Zoe needs a courier or some kneecaps taken out.   
_____  
  
"Reconsidering your offer?" Zoe wonders, crossing one heel over another on John's bare back as she drafts a strongly worded email to the paparazzo who sold the pictures of the wayward Congressman Graham.  
  
John grunts. His thighs shake as he struggles to stay upright on his knees with his arms tied back behind him and his chin just brushing the floor. The vibe in his ass probably doesn't help much, either. Zoe dials it up a notch, and digs her heel into his spine when he jerks. "I asked you a question."  
  
"No ma'am," John gasps, pressing his cheek to the floor. "Happy to help, ma'am."   
  
Zoe sends the email and takes a moment to admire her handiwork. John's skin is damp with sweat, and his cock bobs untouched under his belly, angrily red and swollen. She wonders if he could come like this, with just the vibe. Wonders if he would stay still like she ordered, or if he'd lose control and start grinding down onto the carpet. But also--  
  
"Would you let me fuck you?" she asks, casually, and John groans, hips twitching vainly in the air. "With my dick, I mean. Clearly you're having a nice time with that." She gestures at the vibe, although he can't see her.   
  
John makes a vague sound of agreement into the floor.  
  
"It takes me a while to get going," Zoe explains, enjoying how he shudders at her voice. "Hormone blockers will do that. So normally I'd just use a strap-on. But I think with the right incentive--"  
  
"Fuck," John whimpers, laying his cheek down on the carpet so he can stare up at her. "Please."  
  
"Hmm." Zoe rubs his side with the sole of her foot, distracted for a moment by her inbox refreshing. It's really incredible how many people are involved in getting a daily newspaper to press. "Come on up here, then." She smirks. "If you can."  
  
Watching John unfold himself is a treat. He's graceful, and strong, and in control of his own body, but Zoe can tell that said control is slipping. It doesn't seem to effect his balance, but when John tries to walk forward on his knees the vibe must hit him somewhere new because he whimpers and a fresh bead of precum slides down his dick. She can see him steeling himself, and then making the next step anyway. Same response, same cute little noise.  
  
Zoe hooks a leg over his shoulder and drags him in, enjoying the hot rush of his breath as he nuzzles at her, all soft lips and wet, eager mouth. This might not take much incentivizing at all. Not that Zoe isn't looking forward to bending him over the kitchen table and introducing him to the strap-on collection, because she most certainly is.  
  
"A very good investment," she decides, and turns the Blackberry upside down on the arm of the sofa. She deserves a break, and fifteen minutes won't hurt.


	11. KF Multiverse Fill-- AU, crack, Harold/John, R

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kinkfest fill for prompt: I want multiverse fic where all abused johns from the various noncon prompts get a night off and cared for by harold (in an Ultimate Fluffy Verse where they leave in an AI-run utopia) 
> 
> Originally posted [Here](https://the-ragnarok.dreamwidth.org/36632.html?thread=248856#cmt248856).
> 
> Post-capitalist AI utopia, AU, crack, abuse aftermath, violence, implied character death.
> 
> This was so much fun.

Whatever Harold is expecting to find in the library at 7:03 am on a Thursday morning, it isn't this.  
  
John-- and it _is_ John, no matter how impossible, looking so much younger than Harold remembers at that-- doesn't startle when he walks in. He appears to be hiding something in the pocket of his jacket (the leather motorcycle jacket, the same one-- impossible); oh, of course. A firearm. How quaint.  
  
It is, however, pointed at Harold. He bites down on the completely illogical thrill of fear. MIRA has full control of the library, could stop that bullet several dozen different ways before it even left the barrel.  
  
"Who are you?" John rasps.  
  
An easy enough question to answer. "My name is Harold Finch." Harold makes his way over to his desk and sits down, resolved not to lose his bearings before breakfast. The teapot is already steaming with freshly boiled water from the kettle and the perfect amount of tea leaves loaded fresh from their vacuum sealed biodegradable packaging. Normally MIRA would have started the process three minutes earlier, so it was steeped by the time Harold sat down, but apparently even his domestic management program wants Harold to talk with his unexpected visitor.  
  
"Where am I?" John asks, seemingly caught off balance by Harold's frankness. Harold can see the whites of his eyes from here, the dark circles under them. He looks ill. Harold wonders if he's been drinking.  
  
"A former branch location of the New York Public Library." Harold swivels the chair towards him slowly, trying not to appear aggressive. "Which is not accessible, or even visible, to strangers. How did you get in?"  
  
John's eyes narrow. "Is this some kind of test? What did you do to me?"  
  
"Oh," Harold says. Realization is coming slowly. "Did you wake up in the stacks, by any chance?" As much work as he'd put into it in the last few months, it wasn't like he really expected the device to _work_. Much less to spit out a live, relatively sane human being.  
  
The gun comes out of the pocket, then. John's hand is dead steady, but nearly black with caked, drying blood that's run down the length of his arm. It's like a carapace, shining with gore. Nauseating. Now that he's closer Harold can see the stains on his jeans, the deep bruise below his left eye.  
  
"I imagine you're still with the Agency," Harold says, and reaches down towards the wash cabinet. It opens before he touches it, and he extracts two warm cups. "Or whatever Agency equivalent applies. Please sit down before you fall down."  
  
John doesn't move. Neither does the gun.  
  
Harold sighs. "My name is Harold Finch. The universe we are both currently inhabiting is known as Ellipsis-12, although I suspect that won't mean much to you. You might be more interested to know that it is January the sixteenth, 2037."  
  
This produces no response. Harold reaches back to pour out two mugs of Sencha Green; the barrel follows him, with a slight lag. John's not in good shape; even Harold can tell.  
  
"Your name is probably John Reese. If where you come from is similar to this universe, we will meet properly--" Harold squints at him, the faint crows feet and the dark hair. "Five, maybe ten years from now. It really is in my best interest that you live that long, so please--" he gestures at the mug. "Have a cup of tea, and sit down."  
  
John sits, gingerly, but doesn't move for the mug. The gun sags slightly when he leans against the wall. His eyes aren't tracking, Harold realizes.  
  
"I'm going to get my first aid kit, now," he says, slowly. He'd really like to call a medical professional, but that is out of the question for many reasons. "If you prefer, you can tend to yourself. But if you suspect any internal bleeding or possible drug reactions, you should allow me to assist." He stands, taking his own mug. "There is a toilet and shower down the hall, and a crash room. I assure you that you are safe here."  
  
John just stares woozily. Harold decides he's running a drug panel whether John likes it or not, and goes to retrieve his supplies.  
  
_____________________________  
  
They keep arriving, after that, usually a few days after Harold has sent the last one back. He doesn't know why. It certainly was not his intention, when he built the thing. He wonders whether MIRA has a hand in it, or whether it's something else that science doesn't know how to quantify yet; presents and futures trying to orient themselves by bringing the necessary elements together, saving John so he can save Harold, saving Harold so he can plug MIRA in. Maybe there are Samantha Groves out there finding battered and bloody Sameen Shaws, or even Greers finding Colliers. The determinism of it makes Harold uncomfortable at the same time as it brings a feeling of relief. Maybe in every universe, Samaritan is destined to fail. Maybe every universe is tending, however messily, towards this world of peace and beauty and plenty.  
  
Sometimes, although it is silly, he wonders whether there is an inter-dimensional pull between every Harold Finch and every John Reese. But that's just Harold doing what humans do, taking his selfishness and granting it metaphysical significance. He loved-- still loves-- John Reese, and that's nothing more or less than perfectly ordinary, loving someone. Even when the pain of it feels huge, world-ending.  
  
Some arrivals are worse than others.  
  
Vandal-88's John is non-verbal, and he curls up under Harold's desk when he approaches, fitting his long, lanky body into the dark corner where the wall meets the floor. That was one of the worst ones. Harold set food, water, and blankets out and made himself leave. John could not meet his eyes; when he came back all of it was gone-- John, the water-bottle, the throw, the sandwiches. Sometimes that's all Harold can give.  
  
Tinder-16 does exactly everything that Harold asks, which is convenient up until the point where Harold says, offhandedly while brushing his thumb over a strange looking wound on the back of John's hand, circular like a cigarette burn, "Tell me how this happened?", and the things John tells him are horrific beyond his imaginings, cruelties that don't even seem possible. The worst part of it is when John _apologizes_ for upsetting him.  
  
Harper-9 takes him by surprise; he doesn't notice the library is occupied until John has him up against the wall with an arm over his throat. Harold's startled, ironic laugh doesn't do him any favors, just makes John (thin-faced and hard-mouthed, stubble on his jaw and hunger in his eyes) push into him harder. Once he lets Harold down, though, it's obvious that he's more scared than anything else. He's very much like the John Harold took from the police station, but also different; he's curious, pacing down through the stacks and examining every device in the library, picking apart the food Harold gives him as if he's never seen anything like it before (he eats all of it, no paranoia about poison, or he's simply so hungry it doesn't matter). He refuses to wear the clothes Harold lays out, and instead insists on washing his grimy t-shirt and jeans in the bathroom sink. He leaves the door open, and Harold accidentally glimpses his bare back, rippling with ropy burn scars.  
  
Sometimes, they know him, which is both better and worse. Sometimes John is indifferent to him, the employer whom he barely knows. Sometimes he is angry with Harold. Sometimes, as far as Harold can tell, _he's_ the one who hurts John. Polite-62 flinches at Harold's touch; Optic-089 flinches, and then sinks into a forced, practiced relaxation that makes Harold shudder at its implications.  
  
He loses count, after a while, the same way he once did with the numbers. The library becomes a way-station of identities again, the hub of work that will never be finished. Human cruelty is infinite, and no matter the universe, John Reese always seems to find his way into the thick of it.  
  
It's difficult work. Harold is always waiting for the day he tires of it, the day he starts experiencing compassion fatigue. But it never comes; each of the visitors is a whole, human person, complex and worthy of his complete attention. Every one is relevant. Harold stocks the shelves with canned goods and medical supplies and gloves and soap and soft blankets and even stuffed animals; dogs, mostly, tan and black at the points. It's not just the young ones that need something to hold, something to keep with them when they leave.  
  
It's not a conventional life, but Harold has never expected one. Never wanted one, not really.  
  
Harold thinks at first that Phi-209 is a near copy; he comes in wearing an orange Department of Corrections jumpsuit that Harold recognizes from Rikers. But this John and his Harold are different, somehow-- John rushes to hug him, runs shaking hands along Harold's face and body like he hasn't seen Harold in years. Apparently he hasn't, and there goes Harold's determinism hypothesis, because Phi-209 Harold is dead, run afoul of a number while John was trapped in a jail cell. John has been inside for a very, very long time. Harold contemplates this while John curls up with his head in Harold's lap, shivering. He's so starved for touch. Harold pets him, kisses the top of his head. "I don't want to go back," John says. "Please don't send me back."  
  
It's possible, of course. He's done the math. But none of them have asked, before.  
  
"John," Harold says, stroking the grey, grey hair at his temple, so familiar and alien all at once, "how would you like to do some work for me?"


	12. KF Doting Fill-- Harold/John, PG

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fill for [this prompt](https://the-ragnarok.dreamwidth.org/36632.html?thread=269592#cmt269592) on the kinkfest, although not 100% aligned with all details:  
> John/Harold, doting!Harold, kept man John, fluff and sappiness
> 
> Not a whiff of angst to be found.

"Oh!" Finch says, just as John is stepping down into the stairway, "do take care with the wind, Mr. Reese, it's rather blustery."

John pauses, runs through the sentence again, and still can't find any hidden meaning. "I'm fine," he says, warily.

"At least put on a scarf." Finch rolls his office chair back from the desk and unfolds himself gingerly before hobbling over to the coat rack. "Here, this should do. It's Merino. Let me know which you prefer. I noticed your cashmere is getting a bit worn, despite _how rarely you wear it._ "

The bite of the words is clear, but John can't identify the emotion behind them. Is Finch annoyed that John doesn't put excessive thought or effort into his appearance? Or that he doesn't throw away perfectly good wool scarves just because they fray a little on one edge?

Despite the chide, Finch smiles as he offers it up. John takes the (very soft, clearly expensive) folded bolt of dark blue cloth. It feels like a cloud in his hands, but is deeply warm. "Thank you?"

"Well, off you go," Finch announces, swiveling stiffly on his heel and returning to his monitors without a second glance.

John knots the scarf around his neck before he reaches the exit. It's almost unconscionably soft.

* * *

 

John wraps up the Stafford case by noon, and returns to the library to find Finch's chair empty and a plastic bag sitting far opposite the keyboard. The cup of tea by the mouse is still steaming, and nothing's tripping his internal alarms, so clearly Finch has just stepped away for a moment.  
Probably not long enough for John to get a good crack at unlocking the screensaver, but to be honest Finch has already caught him at it several times and failed even to reprimand him. John tries not to be offended that Finch doesn't think his hacking skills are up to par. It's not personal. No one is up to Finch's par.

He does indulge in some snooping, though, gently coaxing the bag open and then the lid of the styrofoam container nestled inside. A rib-eye steak. It smells heavenly. John's mouth waters.

"Oh, there you are," Finch says, emerging from the break room with a bottle of water in one hand and a fistful of cutlery in the other "do sit down, would you?"

John sits. Then, just to see what happens, he reaches all the way across the table and keys 'asimov' into the computer's lock screen. 'Password Incorrect', of course. He tries 'heinlein', and gets the same result. "What's with the steak?"

Finch doesn't so much as blink. "I realized that you never got to enjoy your meal at the Grand. Which was a crime." He sniffs. "I'd take you there, of course, but I'm afraid you'd be recognized."

"Best give it a few weeks," John agrees, filching a mushroom from the corner of the box. It's firm and flavorful, coated in peppery steak-juice. "Hand me that knife, I'll split it."

"Oh, I already ate," Finch says, waving him off and setting the fork and knife-- a single fork and knife, on the table. "Enjoy your lunch. I have some business in the stacks."

John's attention veers sharply away from the steak towards Finch and 'business', whatever that means. Are there more photos hidden away back there? More clues? What if Finch needs something off a high shelf, or a low one? "Can I help? What do you want from back there?"

"What I want, Mr. Reese, is for you to enjoy your meal," Finch says, and smiles at him. John searches desperately for something sinister or otherwise telling in it, but comes up with nothing. The smile is not just benign, it's _genuine_. He swipes another mushroom as a test. The smile widens.

Finch is actually pleased that John is eating. Finch brought him lunch because he wanted John to eat this particular thing. Because Finch thought he would enjoy it.

It all bears further consideration. "I'm sure I will," John says. "It's very good. Thank you."

"Any time," Finch says, and hobbles off down the hall.

* * *

  
It carries on like that for months, Finch giving him-- gifts. They have to be gifts, Finch doesn't ever seem to want anything from him. John is still waiting for the other shoe to drop, perhaps in the form of an itemized bill (although that would be silly; Finch pays him an exorbitant amount of money, very little of which John actually spends. If Finch wanted monetary reimbursement he could just take it out of John's bank account) or a demand for some kind of favor. He imagines Finch asking John to do something really terrible, torture someone, maybe, and remind John that he bought him a very nice pair of leather driving gloves and therefore John owes him one.

Which is equally silly. As if John wouldn't do practically anything Finch asked of him, terrible or otherwise. Most of the time it's the opposite: Please don't permanently injure Parker, Mr. Reese, or Although we know Rutherford is guilty he is still entitled to a jury of his peers, Mr. Reese, and Is that much ordnance really necessary, Mr. Reese. And really, John doesn't need clothes or trinkets or five-star meals or even the loft apartment to restrain himself when Finch asks him to. Because Finch knows better than John what the right thing to do is. Finch is better than John. He's better than most people.

Case in point: he seems to derive actual pleasure from bestowing gifts on people with no expectation of return. Like he doesn't consider it an exchange at all. And it's not largess, not in the usual patronizing Rich Person way, because what seems to make Finch happiest is watching John enjoy or make use of something, even small, inexpensive things. A glass citrus juicer because John let slip that he doesn't like using loud electrical appliances in the kitchen. A tube of Mil-Comm gun grease that John couldn't track down at any local store. A black featureless skullcap beanie because John hadn't been wearing the very expensive, but overly distinctive, Herris Tweed hat.

And, okay, so there _were_ a lot of large and/or expensive things. Mostly clothing. Occasionally black-market firearms and accessories. Twice (and only because John had totaled the first one in Pursuit of Justice), a motorcycle.

"You spoil me, Harold," John says, when Finch hands him the keys in exchange for his morning cup of tea. "Thank you."

Finch sniffs, and takes refuge behind the cup. It's not just John's imagination that his ears go a bit red at the tips, but the tea is pretty hot. "Think nothing of it."

But of course, John thinks about it a _lot_. He considers that:

One:  Finch gave John a place to live. Finch pays John's utility bills before they even get to the door. Finch brings him imported chocolate, and expensive coffee, and a shatter-proof watch, and a Go set made of oak wood and polished sandstone.

But more importantly,

Two: Finch smiles if John walks into the library wearing something he gave John-- from gloves to cologne. He will hold John's hand up for a moment to admire his cuff links, or reach over to straighten his tie, and tell John he made a good choice. He even seems-- well, not _happy_ , exactly, but if John makes a shot with his newly outfitted rifle or storms a garage wearing his new night vision goggles Finch will say, quietly, 'I'm glad you could make use of that'.

And,

Three: John always says 'Thank you', but Finch never says 'You're welcome'. It's always 'any time's or 'don't mention it's or 'it was no trouble at all's. Because Finch showering him with gifts _isn't_ anything special, or unusual. It's become as constitutive of their relationship as John bringing him tea and breakfast in the morning, and the numbers, and Finch snarking in his ear.

John thinks about all these things, and yet does not know what they add up to.

* * *

 

"There," Finch says, finishing off a perfect knot in John's new silk tie "the Repp stripe suits you, don't you think?"

John glances down. "It sure is... stripey," he says.

Finch huffs. "Yes, I'm aware you prefer quieter patterns. But you'll be attending as my guest, not as a waiter." He straightens John's lapels, brushes non-existent dust off his shoulders. "And Mr.Partridge has a reputation to maintain."

"I'm your trophy suit?" John teases, and then feels his grin turn stiff as Finch flushes from his forehead to his chin. "Hey, take it easy. Just a joke."

"Well," Finch hedges, stepping back a bit and then retreating to the wooden file cabinet "on that note, I should mention--" He coughs, and reaches into the middle drawer. "Mr. Partridge and Mr. Anderson are technically--"

"Harold," John says, looking down at the, okay, very familiar shoes "Don't tell me I have to wear the glasses again."

"--Involved," Finch finishes, presenting him with a small box. "And no, you've had Lasik. Or at least, records of said procedure exist."

"Oh," John says, blinking. Then, "huh." He cracks the box open; a thick titanium band threaded with silver. Masculine but clearly expensive. "We better get our stories straight, then. How did we meet?"

"On a bench on the Greenway," Finch says, dryly. "From which we proceeded to a hotel. But I doubt you'll be asked to recount that at dinner. In fact, it might be best if you let me do the talking."

"Sure," John agrees, rolling the ring between his thumb and forefinger. It warms quickly. "I'll just sit there and look pretty."

Finch glares at him. "That's not what I meant."

John just shrugs. "I'm younger, Partridge is wealthy. It will be seen that way." He slides the ring on; it fits perfectly, of course. He rather likes it; no one's ever given him a ring before. It looks strange on his hand, smooth and cool where he is roughest. "I don't mind."

"Surely you don't--" Finch clears his throat. Fidgets. "I suppose, for the sake of the cover--"

"I don't mind," John repeats. "I-- wouldn't mind. If people thought that."  He's thinking about it right now, actually. Hanging on Finch's arm as decoration instead of looming behind him as security. Going places with Finch off the job-- dinner, the opera, closed showings at art museums, all those things Finch's wealthier personas got up to. Smiling openly at Finch in public, shameless, and everyone in the room knowing that they were going home together. Everyone knowing that John was Harold's.

No, John wouldn't mind that at all.

"Perhaps I _would_ , Mr. Reese," Finch says, face very, very red. He's not looking at John. He's making a valiant effort to look everywhere _but_ at John, and it all adds up, suddenly.

John grins. Settles his hand gently on Harold's elbow, testing. He wants so badly to tease, but restrains himself.

"Thank you for the ring, Harold," he says instead. "It's lovely."

Finch clears his throat again. Sniffs. "Yes, well--"

John waits. Holds him there, poised on the edge of something.

"You're welcome," Harold says, finally, and busies himself with John's lapel. "Now, if you don't mind, we're going to be late."


	13. KF Identities Fill-- Reese/Finch, R

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little fill for [ a prompt ](https://the-ragnarok.dreamwidth.org/36632.html?thread=282904#cmt282904) on the kinkfest: "In canon, some of John's identities work for some of Harold's identities. I'd like to see that play out in a bdsm world, where several of John's identities belong to Harold's identities."

Wren is like Finch, mostly; unassuming and only very slightly pretentious, attuned to craft and the value of things. His collar is clean brown leather with a brass clasp that looks equally at home on his desk blotter, discarded on the carpet, around John's neck. His co-workers at Universal Heritage seem to be under the impression that he has a dog at home.   
  
John, incidentally, likes Universal Heritage Insurance very much. Harold's desk there is huge and turned towards the door and John can curl up at Harold's feet under it with room to spare. He's whiled away whole afternoons with his cheek on Wren's shoes, listening to the muffled footsteps and ringing of phones outside the office. Wren keeps his office cool and that makes it easy for John to doze, contented and calm, with his head in Harold's lap.  
  
___  
Egret keeps him on a prong collar. Harold protested at first, but John convinced him of the benefits. The people Egret meets with are not subtle. The collar makes both Egret and his pet detective Stills more imposing; John, because he gives the impression of an aggressive and ill-trained guard dog, and Egret because he is the hand on the end of that chain, the man who can keep Stills in check as easily as he can set him loose.  
  
John's favorite is when Egret takes them to parties, because no matter who they are surrounded by, the meanest dealers on the blackest of markets, the most corrupt of officials, the cruelest of warlords, Harold is always the most dangerous man in the room. Whatever Egret sits on becomes a dark throne. John stretches out on the floor in front of him, keeps would-be suppliants away with a wild grin and snaps of his teeth. When everyone has learned their place he likes to reaffirm his, bringing Egret off with his mouth while their audience, envious, cheers him on.  
  
John still hasn't decided what he likes more-- the pinch and burn when Egret jerks the chain tight across his neck, the abraded points, or the soft noises Harold makes when they're finished, the tender way he cleans John's tiny wounds, soothes them with apologies and kisses.  
  
____  
  
Crane, although somewhat eccentric, is concerned with appearances. His is a world of philanthropic dinners and opera houses and highly selective after-parties in dimly lit smoking rooms where John is not the only man on his knees. Unlike with Egret, no one would dare approach John Rooney at Crane's parties. Also unlike with Egret, John is required to keep his pants on. Crane is not an exhibitionist. John does not service him in public. Instead he sits, watchful and silent, at Harold's feet and plays the part of a bauble. He likes this feeling-- being part of Harold's disguise like a carefully selected pair of cuff-links or the watches and fountain pens Crane likes to give as business gifts.  
  
Crane's collar is a bit showier-- thick black leather with a silver clasp that matches the silver head on his walking stick. It's lined with rabbit fur that John loves to run his closed mouth over just to feel the softness. In private, of course.   
____  
  
Whistler is an old hand, the kind of dom who has practiced for decades and has kept his work life and his personal life cleanly separate. He has long-standing memberships to clubs and annual expos, but avoids private parties unless John asks.  
  
John does ask, though, because he loves to be Riley, apparently boring detective bound at the feet of apparently boring Professor Whistler. There is something so freeing in appearing as normal, regular people-- two men past their prime who have found in each other someone to spend those long empty hours after work with. When Whistler brings a collar back from Hong Kong, sleek black braided leather, John begs to go out.   
  
Whistler takes them to a medium-sized play party in Chelsea, a massive loft with hooks in the ceiling and plastic mats on the floor. He stretches Riley out on a rack, drips hot red wax along his chest and stomach until John looks like he's been gutted, and they are not even close to being the most interesting people in the room.  
____  
  
But out of all of them, Finch is John's favorite. Finch doesn't have a collar-- what ties John to him is much stronger, much deeper than a strip of leather.   
  
Finch has offered, of course. He's seen how John responds. He's seen how John grows calm when Wren picks up that plain brown collar, how John smiles when Whistler coils the braided leather in his palm. How John gasps with surprise and arousal when Egret chokes him, how John presents his neck to Crane so easily. He's wondered whether the collar is something John needs.  
  
"It isn't," John says, and lifts Harold's hands to his mouth, kisses them with reverence. "I'm yours. You know that."  
  
Finch doesn't have a collar. Instead, he brings John a ring.


End file.
